Harbour Board short of cash

Press, 13 June 1986, Page 1

Harbour Board short of cash

The Lyttelton Harbour Board is studying ways of getting itself out of the financial doldrums. The board is short of cash and spending more than it earns. For the first seven months of its financial year the board showed a deficit of $l.l million, when it had budgeted for a surplus of $1.4 million. The amount of cargo handled at Lyttelton for the same period was 1.4 million tonnes, a drop of 18 per cent, or- more than 300,000 tonnes, on the corresponding period last year. The financial position has become so tight that the outer-harbour dredge Peraki has been laid up to save fuel costs. A revised budget with cost-cutting measures is expected to be presented to the board in closed meeting on June 18. “It is imperative that we reduce our expenses in the longer term,” said the board’s acting general manager, Mr Peter Morgan. “We are spending more than we earn.” However, Mr Morgan said that he expected the board’s financial position to improve. Several factors were re-

sponsible for the drop in cargo tonnage and the board’s revenue, said Mr Morgan. The amount of grain exported through Lyttelton was down about 50 per cent because of a bad harvest. Farmers were tightening their belts and buying less fertiliser, and so the amount of fertiliser imported through the port had dropped about 50 per cent.

Mr Morgan said that the tonnage carried in

the coastal shipping trade had also dropped significantly. z One of two Pacifica Shipping vessels Spirit of Free Enterprise had been laid up as had the Union Company’s Union Nelson, which had provided a link with Onehunga and Nelson. In addition, the board faced many extraordinary expenses because of the accident In which the port’s container crape was wrecked in February, 1985. • • • - - Mr Morgan said that the replacement Samba container crane would soon be shifted to Auckland, and the board would have to pay for that. However, the good news was that the container terminal was expected to have about the same through-put of cargo this year as last year. The meat trade had had a slow start, but was also expected to pick up. The export wool trade, also remained strong. Mr Morgan said that the board was living in an age of deregulation, and

was a barometer of what was happening in the economy. Other ports had been hit harder than Lyttelton, he said. Asked whether the board’s cost-cutting would include redundancies, Mr Morgan said that there was no thought of redundancies at this stage. It was critical for the board to work in cooperation with its workers during the cost-cutting, he said.

"We are looking at those areas of activity that produce little revenue but are high on expenses,” he said. “We have to ensure that we don’t have a costsubsidising operation.” For example, the board was looking at the usefulness of the floating crane Rapaki, which produced virtually no revenue. Officers were also investigating whether some of the other conventional wharf cranes, were needed. The secretary of the Lyttelton branch of the Harbour Board Employees’ Union, Mr Paul Monk, said that the union and board representatives had recently discussed the cash problem. Mr Monk said that the board had given assurances that no jobs were on the line. The union had sent its responses to the board about certain cost-cutting measures which had been presented at- the meeting. Mr Monk said that the union was “obviously concerned” about the downturn in tonnage which passed through Lyttelton. However, the union was pleased that it had been consulted by the board.